


Soul and Body

by the_blue_fairie



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, First Kiss, Nudism, Starts Out Painful But Becomes Uplifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_fairie/pseuds/the_blue_fairie
Summary: At first, Cassandra's armor makes her feel strong. A meditation on Cassandra's self-image and struggle to come to terms with herself - as well as a meditation on the love Cassandra and Rapunzel have for one another and how it helps them through the darkest of times.
Relationships: Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 58





	Soul and Body

At first, her armor made her feel invincible.

Made of the very rock that shattered worlds, sent them splintering and spiraling in shards.

No longer would she recoil as her own sword spat back shards, brittle against the rock.

No longer would she _be a shard herself_ – a fragmented thing once thought strong – the finest sword she could find – her pride – an extension of herself – _herself_ – revealed to be… spinning, spiraling in flimsy air, helplessly broken.

The very thing that revealed to her, her own fragility – now her protection.

Indomitable.

Let others feel the fear of their fine blades becoming brittle against herself…

Herself.

This armor was _of her_ and that made her feel strong –

At first.

Blood bleeds – but molten light did not.

Molten light encased in stone – magma of the moon.

Moon-glow that burned brighter than all the furnaces of the sun.

No longer would this shard shiver in the light of a thing stronger than herself – glinting before the brilliance of the moon, fragmented metal pale as skin…

She _was_ the light.

To have been the light before, indisseverable as moonbeam – when all her life had been hewn – when all her life had been a history of armoring the scars – not armoring for protection (although she _convinced_ herself it was that) but armoring when it was already too late –

Binding steel over blackened skin –

Armoring her burned claw to protect it (mask it), to cover it (there were two meanings in that) –

Self-hatred that called itself self-preservation.

As in childhood when she was first drawn to the artistry of a knight’s armor in a storybook.

A tiny thing with pale face and frightened eyes, eyes that grew round with almost-wonder, almost-hope.

Almost-hope of being something other than a tiny thing with frightened eyes, large and dark as a celestial plane whose lights had already gone out.

Shining steel could light the firmament anew, the sun-blaze, star-blaze purging the blackness of heaven of the weak and fragile thing whose eyes – for all their serious darkness – still shone with the lustrousness of tears, pitiful tears, child-tears wishing the star-blaze could burn the memory of her mother (the tiny child choked back the sob in her throat, choking was steeling, was putting on armor) away.

As when she was first dazzled by the guardsmen’s helms.

Golden and gleaming – worthy of her and yet unworthy – unworthiness reflected in their glinting mirrors, but what did mirrors reflect but her own heart?

(Armor yourself to guard yourself. Skin is soft. Skin is weak. A child’s face is doughy and weak. It needs knight’s armor to transform it. A young woman’s face is sharp and weak, the sharpness of its edges only another kind of armor. An illusive armor. The childhood transformation was illusion, dream. You are still the same pale flesh. The same trembling flesh. The same pitiful flesh, choking to stop from crying – the weakness, the imperfection, the flaw in you – and the flaw will remain even with a golden helm, but a golden helm can guard – does it? can it? The flaw, is it in you or is it in the world? In both, but especially in you.)

What did mirrors reflect but her own heart?

In the spikes that rose before her, there were many mirrors.

Tall and black as taloned reapers, as corridors in dreams that engulf the dreamer in darkness, stretching on forever as the unsettling quality overtakes the heart, making the dreamer shake upon awakening, body shuddering in spasms.

For Cassandra, there was no awakening.

The black rock stood glossy before her, glossy enough to be a mirror and yet its glossiness never glinted, but only seemed to drink in light – absorb it to itself.

She was the light –

A child desperately trying to assure herself of her own worthiness in the face of her mother’s indifference.

A young woman pleading with the universe for something – anything – to –

The heart races in your sleep, the realization of nightmare closing in, pounding – pounding –

On her breast the Moonstone gleamed, a heart that did not pump blood – but like all things of hers, there was something wrong in it, something wrong in her – even when she finally felt untouchable, the fingers of the darkness _touched_ her…

They caught her arm in an iron grip, clamping to her skin, clamping over her body in an armor that was a prison, a protection that was a wound – a wound she still nursed and let fester, like her burned hand, nursing the spite, because there was something wrong in _her_ – in the world too, yes, but in her.

She dared not peel the armor away, rip the rock from off her skin, lest below she saw blue veins of blood – light, only a child’s faith in her mother, a futile hope – blood that ran and soaked and dried, that mottled and purpled like a charred hand – always armoring too late – thinking for once she was more than the mess of twisted flesh and bone she was, she only ever was…

Or, if she saw the light below, that would mean her even more… aberrant… broken…

In a frenzy, she smashed her arm against the rock – over and over –

A child flailing in its tears –

That was all she had ever been, ever would be. She knew it. Even when she told herself otherwise, she knew –

Hoping rock would shatter rock, rip free a raw and bloody arm – a mangled, mutilated visage – half-hoping the spike would spear her – and if the light ran in her veins, if all the cracks burned blue – then she would be without an arm, without this hanging flesh, this bone case – she would hate the blood to see it, hate the light to see it, hate herself to see herself – She hated the armor most of all.

She had always hated the armor.

Armor yourself in childhood – what aberration was that?

Yet – without it –

More rocks rose with every shattering strike. Cassandra charged through the labyrinth screaming – almost ready to fling herself from the brink, cast herself down from the spire, in hopes that the spikes at its base would skewer her…

Almost, but not.

Cassandra screamed in rage, futility, and fear – and collapsed before the darkness.

Collapsed before the darkness.

Black rock chips away from long stalactites, the silver tears of subterranean waters wearing it down until only slivers remain…

Silver tears ran down the sliver of Cassandra, stark without the Moonstone on her breast.

“When you laughed. You had this look in your eyes. I don’t know. It was like seeing you – the _real_ you – for the first time. And that’s the Cassandra I became best friends with.”

_The real me?_

_The real me isn’t a thing to love, Raps._

_Even I recoil from… me._

Could it be possible?

That the thing she was, inmost, was worthy?

That trembling, pitiful thing of weakness, thing of fragility, was –

“There is more in you, Cassandra.”

Armored, Cassandra hurled herself into battle with a demon.

It was so different from the thought of hurling herself from the spire – though both deeds could have ended in self-annihilation.

It was not the self-annihilation of despair.

Nor was it the self-annihilation of futility.

It was not rebirth.

To be reborn means to cast away all that once she was – and Cassandra did not do that.

Even in the light of awe, Rapunzel’s tears wet upon her face, it was not rebirth.

It was _a continuation of life_ – life with all its mistakes, its griefs, its hope, its strength, its love.

The battle done, Cassandra stood alone in her chambers.

Gathering herself in silence.

Her heartbeats like the ticking of the clock in the stillness.

She removed her armor.

Removed her garb.

Stood nude in the silence, then sat down upon her bed.

Felt the silk against her skin.

(Skin was soft, but it was not weak.)

Felt her heart beating, her blood flowing.

Breathed.

Hugged herself to process this thing she was.

“Thing.” She was more than a thing.

She breathed gently, steadily.

A gasp, but not Cassandra’s. Cassandra started, wrapping her arms around herself.

Rapunzel stood in the doorway, blushing.

“I’m sorry, I –”

Two apologies, spoken by two voices, then sheepish smiles – meek smiles, lightness.

Seeing Rapunzel’s eyes were soft, not offended by… herself… in this state, Cassandra felt more at ease. Shame had coiled back into her heart – fear that she had done wrong (though in her own room alone), that she had broken the brittleness of her and Rapunzel’s reforged bond.

But she and Rapunzel had been to the abyss and back. They knew each other’s souls stripped naked by cataclysm. This choice of hers was nothing to that.

Rapunzel delicately departed, but a trust glistened in the air. Cassandra sank back into bed, the rhythm of her breathing soothing her.

Her own self… soothing her.

That trust twinkled like – no, not like anything. Not like the moon at Cassandra’s window, its beams a soft caress. Not like the sunlight fluttering impishly at dawn. That trust was _theirs._ Their own. Unlike any avatar of sun or moon entwined to them. Of them and of their hearts.

Cassandra continued her casual nudity – in private – her experiment in vulnerability, experiment in strength.

She knew Rapunzel knew, respected the boundary of the door. The princess, the queen, respected the boundary of the lady-in-waiting, the hero, the equal – not out of fear of an indomitable force, but out of understanding.

Understanding in two hearts that melded unlike a blade at the forge, unlike Sundrop and Moonstone, unlike the paints of Rapunzel’s palette.

Until, a request, gentle, earnest, fragile and strong:

“May I… join you? Cass?”

Earnest.

A part of Cassandra supposed Rapunzel unashamed by nudity – the flower child, the free spirit bounding across the world in her bare feet. Another part of her felt awe and tenderness at the request – from Rapunzel, the girl who had been objectified – been made an object – a thing – a flower to be used – not in control of her own destiny for years of her life – reaching out –

Cassandra felt a deep tenderness for Rapunzel’s bravery in all its forms.

Still, she blushed, not so ready yet for personal nudity to extend to social nudity.

_In time._

In time, it was, when Cassandra finally said, “Of course,” so softly – a faint smile on her lips – when Rapunzel smiled in turn, her dress falling away, laying a towel down lightly upon the chair beside Cassandra’s bed and sitting…

No flow of gold to wind about herself, Godiva-like, her hair jagged and brown and beautiful as leaves in autumn – and yet she was not exposed.

They sat and laughed together, talked together – freely.

It became routine, this time that was their own, this time of trust to mend the wounds of dis (dis – a Latin prefix meaning apart, asunder; dis – a Plutonian realm, a city in Hell – so many distant dreams away now) distrust.

Trust.

And when Rapunzel the flower child, Rapunzel the free spirit, Rapunzel the artist, made another request in all the tenderness of trust, Cassandra accepted it – accepted what she durst not dream accepting so many months ago.

They found a glade secure as a jewel-box, strewn with as many emeralds in its leaves. There they disrobed – Rapunzel taking a moment to drink in the sun, feel the twirl of the wind about her – Cassandra pausing to experience the world in a way that was akin and yet different, standing as a tree stands, indomitable in its presence, letting the light of the world wash into her – not dancing as Rapunzel did in an instant of elfin abandon, but _being._

_She was the light._

Then Rapunzel set to work. Rapunzel the bohemian. Rapunzel the artist.

Dipping her brushes in golds to rival the sun, greens to rival the lushness surrounding them, in azures brighter than the river nearby, in blooming pinks, purples – and gliding them across Cassandra’s skin.

Face painting was a staple of Corona festivals, but this went beyond…

The brush tickled Cassandra’s belly as a sunflower unfurled its petals from her navel, the sun’s rays spilling from them so that Cassandra hardly knew if the splendor was a blossom of the earth or a celestial body, the star that gave the flourishing flower its name. More flowers flourished, flowing into river-patterns, rhythms given voice in visions, constellations scattered upon her shoulders, elbow, buttocks... Various flowers bloomed upon her buttocks and ahhh, how they tickled with each daub and Cassandra could not help but smile.

Theirs was a free union of ideas, images, wonders – for this was _theirs._ Cassandra spoke concepts and Rapunzel painted them – more than mere suggestions, the interweaving of two minds. Cassandra was not simply a canvas; she was a collaborator in this cornucopian cavalcade, an artist in herself.

Yet, there was an intimacy in being a canvas, in being artist and artistry both.

She had gone from yearning for the artistry of armor in storybooks to shield her body to being artistry herself.

So long she had striven to be _untouchable._

And here she was, letting herself be touched by the stroke of the brush, letting herself feel the cool ribbon of the paint guided by hands she trusted. Here she was, trusting hands other than her own and at the same time, trusting herself…

Rapunzel was not subsuming her.

This was not royalty and lady-in-waiting.

Not a maker molding clay.

Not Pygmalion projecting upon Galatea.

Owl-eyes glinted through the starlight on her shoulders, the golden patterns on sword-hilts coiled like dragon-fire upon her hips…

There was a messiness to Rapunzel’s exuberance that made her a work of art as well, splashing the painter with her own paints until she became the image of kaleidoscopic delight. The two had lain a paper down to catch the splashes that might have hit the grass. Upon return to the city, they would have these abstract streaks of color to show the world.

But this –

This was theirs alone to keep.

For a finishing touch, Rapunzel painted a single rose on Cassandra’s cheek. She drew close, making the green of the stalk delicate as a thread. Then she turned to take up red, and as she raised her brush to stipple the gentle flush of Cassandra’s cheek, the berry-red seemed not so rich as the bloom there, and as the bloom on Cassandra’s lips.

They kissed each other then – for kissing seemed natural to them, natural as the air about them, as the earth beneath their feet.

Natural to two who had learned each other’s souls.

Paint smeared; the kiss deepened in the halo of the sun.

The moment was not prelapsarian.

They had fallen, the both of them, many times before, for life is a series of falls – but not every fall is a cataclysm – and even in cataclysms, they pulled each other up.

Until they carved their way back to Eden.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as just a little prose-poem but somehow became one of the longest pieces I've ever written. The initial idea (of Cass struggling with her self-image) grew to something larger and, I hope, more uplifting. I'm proud of all my work, as anyone will know who has encountered me, but particularly proud of this. If you enjoyed, I'd be honored if you left a review. Thank you. Thank you so much.


End file.
